Sparkle Your Decor with Pillows

Snowball Fight Bed Quilt

80" x 94"

Sharon V. Rotz

After many years of working with decorators making custom soft furnishings, I've grown to love the sparkle pillows can give to your room. I thought it would be fun to look at a number of pillow ideas.

A pillow idea can be as simple as making an extra block from your quilt. These pillows named "Throw Snowball Pillows" laughingly refer to what often happens to them in a lively household. An extra block from the quilt border makes a fast quilted pillow top. Add a solid border to size it for a standard purchased pillow form and you can finish in a snap.

The instructions for making "Throw Snowball Pillows", "Snowball Pillowcases" and the "Snowball Fight Bed Quilt" are all in my book, Quilting Through the Seasons.

How have you decorated with quilted pillows?  Share your ideas by commenting to this post.

I'll be back with more pillows, pillows, pillows.

Flowers Brighten a Winter's Day

I have been privileged to be part of a colorful display of art and gorgeous orchids at the Riverfront Arts Center in Stevens Point, WI. There is a wide variety of art mediums on display with a floral theme in common. This is complimented by orchids of many colors, shapes and sizes.

Both the artwork and the orchids are for sale, so its a fabulous time to enliven your home and push away those winter blues. The orange framed fiber piece by Pat Gaska is one of my favorites in the show (and is already sold, so hurry out before your favorite is gone as well.)

"Smooshing" Colors

I have art friends who talk about "smooshing colors" in their paintings. I think the joy of quilting is "smooshing" fabrics -- combining colors and fabric designs together.

It's time for my "Undercover Quilter" friends to gather again after a Christmas break. We will have a day full of fun as we challenge ourselves to make new combinations of fabric from sales, donations and our own excess supplies. We are constantly amazed at what we can do with what we have. It's really too much fun for one day and we often extend our creativity by working on quilt tops "off the record".

To me, it seems easier to make a backing first and then combine fabrics for the quilt top. I found a piece almost big enough for a backing and it did become the back with a border of a second fabric.

The remainder of the border fabric became the focus fabric for the front of the quilt. I tried my best to choose fabrics that coordinated with this focus fabric. At times, with the limiting selection, this becomes a challenge in creativity.  Certainly, this has spread into the rest of my quilting endeavors, making it even easier to "smoosh"colors together.

As I'm stitching the blocks and bits of block together, I'm wondering if smoosh is really a word.  It brings to mind the dreaded vocabulary tests we had in school and how I never appreciated my teacher's efforts. Well, Mrs. V., I believe I've juxtaposed my blocks with serendipitous results.

Maybe it was all a matter of context (and a good number of years of maturity.)

What Disturbs Your Studio Time?

Each day, I enjoy the companionship of the friendly little chickadees as they dance around my head at the bird feeder. They seem to watch for the moment that I approach with more seeds and the call goes out.

Yesterday, as I was busy in my studio I heard some tapping at my window. I looked out and had to laugh. Yes, there he was, a brazen little chickadee knocking to tell me the feeder was almost empty.

Push the flowers aside. I think there must be a chickadee quilt in my future.  

Serging and Flouncing About a Bit More

Climbing Roses
23" x 10"
Sharon V. Rotz








As you can see, for this project I decided to use my serged flounce on the binding edge of the wallhanging. It would make a wonderful pillow edge as well. (We could consider this a flat pillow.)

This wallhanging combines units of string piecing, a fun and creative use for small scraps of fabric, with three dimensional applique. The leaves were folded wrong sides together and overlock-serged on the curved open edge. The top edge of a red batik fabric strip was serged with a rolled edge. The strip of fabric was then formed into the roses and hand stitched onto the background.

This project gave me a chance to explore more options for using my serger as a quilting tool. Now, new images of serged flounces are creeping into my brain. How could I incorporate a flounce into the center of a project? maybe between rows of blocks, hmmm.

For more quilting ideas using your serger, please refer to my latest book, Serge and Merge Quilts.